


A Lament for Icarus

by IntoTheRiverStyx



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Angst, Post-Battle of Camlann, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24581620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx
Summary: When it's all over, you'll know where to find me,was all Kay had told him before disappearing into the night. That was one thing Kay had been able to do since the three of them were boys together, melt into the shadows as if he never existed in the first place.Another thing Kay had done was avoid the use of absolutes he did not mean. And so when Kay used the wordall,he meant exactly that – all. Kay may as well have said,At the end of Arthur's life, come and find me.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	A Lament for Icarus

_When it's all over, you'll know where to find me,_ was all Kay had told him before disappearing into the night. That was one thing Kay had been able to do since the three of them were boys together, melt into the shadows as if he never existed in the first place.

Another thing Kay had done was avoid the use of absolutes he did not mean. And so when Kay used the word _all,_ he meant exactly that – all. Kay may as well have said, _At the end of Arthur's life, come and find me._

But oh, he knew exactly where to find him despite the years upon years it had been. It had pained him to see the brothers torn apart by stubborn pride, but he had pledged his loyalty to his King, and to break such a pledge may as well have been rendering his life forfeit.

Kay – Kay had taken no oath, had knelt before no one. Kay had, quite simply, stood beside his brother, had found work to keep himself busy where the other Knighted soldiers may have sought out rest. And because of this, because it was not oath but choice and choice alone that bound Kay to Camelot, so too was it choice and choice alone that drove him away.

And besides, even if Bedivere _had_ followed Kay, had taken Kay's side in the argument between brothers, Kay never would have forgiven him for leaving Arthur alone against the tides of court politics.

He kicked his horse, urged the retched thing to go faster. As much as he did not want to do this, did not want to have to see the most raw parts of his friend's grief, even more than that he did not want to be alone in his sorrow any longer.

When at last he reached the miniature castle he had only ever thought to call Sir Ector's estate, there must have been enough about him that still looked as he did when he was still just outside of boyhood, because no one stopped him, no one asked who he was or what he was doing there.

“Where is Kay?” he asked one of the people he passed in the halls. And, perhaps what would be all the confirmation that they knew who he was, Bedivere was given a straightforward answer.

“You will find him in the library.”

Bedivere took off at a run, his legs knowing the way still, knowing where the shortcuts were for when they – Kay, Arthur, and himself – were going to be late for their lessons, giggling like the children they were, still remembered a time when their biggest worry was their tutor's stern words and threat of a hand he would never actually raise for fear of being replaced.

He had not considered how heavy his footfalls were, how loud his labored breathing would be in the quietude of the study. All he considered was he would see Kay at long last, would never have to wonder if Kay's ire would have been worth inciting to follow him back to the lands that raised them.

There was a sound of a glass inkwell shattering against stone floor, the only indicator Kay was aware of his arrival before he felt himself being tackled, a terrified embrace rather than assault, a certain series of pressures against him he could never forget. He shifted one foot such that they both might remain upright but otherwise let the force of the thing hit him as hard as it could.

“Kay,” he managed as soon as his breath found its way back into his body.

“It's over, then, isn't it?” Kay wasted no time in asking.

“I'm sorry,” Bedivere meant what he said, “I did my best.”

Kay backed up slowly, gave Bedivere room to breath and Bedivere hated it, hated knowing if he looked now he'd see what heartbreak looked like, hated that he knew he would never forgive himself if he _didn't_ look, didn't commit Kay's sorrow to memory such that he may know what played through Kay's mind when his thoughts found their way back to this very moment.

“You always did,” Kay's voice was level, steady, his eyes unclouded, “Your best, I mean.”

Bedivere could not take the assurance, felt something else entirely underpinning his friend's words that grated against any warmth the reunion could have possibly held.

“And you did not?” Bedivere did not mean it in a cruel way, but it much have hit something deeper than any words had struck Kay before, because there was no anger, no sharp tongue or snide remarks, nothing that would have followed such a brash, personal question if he had not managed to shatter something within Kay with four short words.

“No,” Kay's voice was still steady but his eyes seemed to shift, seemed to let Bedivere see any and all pain Kay ever experienced as Kay said, “I did not.”

A lot of Kay's choices made sense, all of the sudden. Why he had claimed it had been him who pulled the sword, why he'd taken on more work when he'd always hated chores and had a habit of burning himself in the kitchens, why he'd closed himself off from forming personal bonds after it was clear Arthur had secured the throne.

Those things had not been motivated by resentment, had not been because Kay wanted to distance himself from Arthur. There was no anger behind the carefully developed sharpness that replaced the softer, more curious Kay he had known growing up.

Only attempts to protect Arthur.

And so, too, had it not been fury that lead Kay to return to his childhood home and life as – well, live however he had been living. It was a feeling of failure, a fear Arthur had found in others what Kay had tried so hard to provide to the point of sacrificing himself.

“But you did,” Bedivere raised his hand slowly and placed it on Kay's arm, the squeeze a slow thing so Kay had ample opportunity to move away, to jerk his arm free, to do anything to tell him through words or actions or both that his touch was unwelcome. Kay did not move, but Bedivere thought he saw Kay's lower lip tremble. It was such a slight thing he would have missed it had he not once known the other man near as well as he knew himself.

It was a slow thing at first – Kay's eyes lowered then his lips shifted then his shoulders slumped forward – before it all happened at once and Kay sank to his knees and howled, a keening thing, full of a sorrow only kin could know. 

Bedivere was not fast enough, was not on his knees such that he may offer himself as an anchor in whatever storm Kay was weathering in time to memorize the exact face he'd told himself he needed to. He had failed the younger brother, and now he was failing the only person he had left in his life he cared about.

Still, he was there, now, on the floor with Kay as Kay crumpled under the weight of loss and fear and feelings of failures that were never supposed to be his to feel.

Had Ector still been there he may have told them there was no preventing this, no way to keep a King from soaring as high or as low as he wished. He would have told them how Uther, too, had been brought down by a hubris that masqueraded as ambition. But there was no father, no figure to guide them through their grief.

They lost their identities, first when that damned wizard's scheming ripped their childhoods from them, and now as Knights to a kingdom that no longer existed. Kay had lost his brother in the same way Bedivere had lost his friend, and that perhaps was a wound that they could never learn to treat, never be able to heal from.

All they had left in this world was each other, and they would cling to that for as long as they could.


End file.
